If they Trust our E-commerce Site, Will They Trust our Social Commerce Site Too? Differentiating the Trust in E-commerce and S-commerce: The Moderating Role of Privacy and Security Concerns

This study ventures into the new domain of s-commerce. It studies the moderating impact of the four privacy concern dimensions (collection, secondary use, improper access and errors) and security concerns on trust between e-commerce and s-commerce sites of e-vendors. Several studies have examined privacy concern; however, the knowledge pertaining to the role of its individual dimensions is very limited. This study involves 270 students studying in a Midwestern University. The data were analyzed using median split. Analyses were conducted using multi variate concern factors. The study reveals several interesting findings. It suggests that users trust e-commerce sites more than s-commerce ones. More interestingly, the findings reveal that the Internet users have largely freed their trust formation from the limiting hives of collection and secondary usage concerns. The findings also signaled a strong support for the role of concerns related to improper access and errors in trust formation. According to the results the users trust, in general, is impacted by their error concerns. However, their improper access concerns impact their trust differently. They lower their trust in s-commerce sites, but not in ecommerce sites. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.